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One Of These Days -*- Copyright 2005 by Ellen Hayes.
Any resemblance between the writings in this work, and any actual persons or places, living or dead, are purely coincidental, except when used for satirical purposes.
This work contains adult situations, adult language, adult concepts, and possibly sex. If you are legally not allowed to read materials containing such things, then you will be breaking the law by reading this. I am not responsible. Continuing to read this document, or storing it or reproducing it in any format means that you explicitly affirm that you are legally allowed to possess and read such materials in your city, county/parish, state, and country.
All rights reserved. See the bottom for distribution rights.
One Of These Days
Mike sighed, "C'mon, Tuck; I know the food sucks, but you have to eat something."
"Tuck, if you don't eat anything, they're going to keep you here longer. You know they monitor your food intake."
<Not that close. Not hungry. J-E-L-L-O,> he spelled out. <Doesn't hurt my throat.>
"What about some soup?" Mike asked, scanning the sheet. "I think they got some..."
Debbie ran through her list of contacts, wondering who she could use for this. Maybe Lisa has something...
Dana had come in after her office hours to see Eugene; she had to keep checking on him. Definitely one of my weirder patients, she thought, not for the first time. He looked a lot better than he had Sunday, but he still looked ill and battered. His best friend Michael was there as well; Dana supposed that they were still keeping the 24- hour guard on Eugene, just in case. She still thought it was paranoia, but after a little thought she couldn't say it wasn't justified. And getting into a hospital was no trick at all, she knew.
Eugene signed something at her; she could recognize that it was sign language, but she didn't understand it. "What?"
"Bwana say, 'More morphine now'," Mike translated. "Well, tough shit, Tuck," he said back.
Tuck made another motion with his hands, one she had no trouble translating. "None of that," Dana warned.
He signed some more, and Mike translated, "More... morphine." He paused as Eugene kept gesturing, then repeated, "'Chest on fire, need to cough, hurts too much.'"
"Eugene, you've already had-"
He began signing furiously at that, but Mike only said, "Bwana not happy with you." Tuck tossed off another handsign that Dana could read, at Mike. "Well, don't piss off your pusher, dumbfuck," Mike shot back.
Dana had to chuckle at that, though it was a bit irritating. "Also, Eugene," she mentioned, "we're going to clamp the tube after this time, and leave it that way for twenty-four hours, and if there's nothing in there by that time, we can take it out."
Mike said, "Alright!" while Eugene smiled wearily. That bothered her; he usually had more energy than that for anything that led to getting out of a hospital.
"C'mon, Tuck, HEAVE!" Mike coaxed.
Tucker tried, but didn't manage anything for several seconds; he just stared, fish-eyed, at the foot of the bed. <Hurts.>
"Yeah, I know, but it needs to come out." Mike started slapping his back rapidly, and while Tuck managed to return a few, it had the desired effect as it started the coughing.
The things that were coming up, Mike did not want to think about.
"Why does my fucking life have to be so HARD?" Jody sobbed to herself, her face muffled in the seat. "It's not FAIR!"
"It's okay, Tuck, it's okay," Mike kept repeating, as Tuck had a case of the shivers. He'd coughed up so much slime into the bedpan they were using as a catch-basin that it scared him. Maybe both of them; Tuck didn't seem that aware or concerned, but he was shaking like a badly-loaded washing machine.
"Hello?"
"Um, Mister Tucker? It's Sabrina... you said to call before I came over?"
"Oh... yes, I did. And you can come over. You have a test this week, right?"
"That's not important, I mean, if you're busy or someth-"
"No, we're not busy. Mike's with Tuck right now, and Sarah is sleeping upstairs."
"How's he doing?"
"Better, but not ready to get out of the hospital yet."
"Who pulled him out of the closet?"
"It was ASHLEE!" Jody shrieked. "I already fucking-"
"Jody!" her mother complained fearfully.
"-told you that!"
"Uh huh," said the cop, like he didn't care. Jody was sure he didn't, or that he hated Jody for what she'd done, like everyone else did.
"Sarah? Wake up..."
"Wha... Oh, crap, what time is-"
Bill said calmly, "Twenty-thirty, and you need to go change places with Mike at the hospital."
"Nuhhh," she protested as she sat up. She hadn't even removed her clothes, she noticed, when she'd lay down earlier. "Glah." He handed her a diet soda. "Thanks..." She slurped noisily at it, trying to get the awful taste of wakeup out of her mouth.
"Susan checked in again, six P.M. via mail," he added. "No problems, and she didn't have any problems with professors after she showed them that note you wrote."
"Oh good," Sarah commented before swallowing some more soda.
Sabrina sighed as she went to her car. Math was starting to make more sense than it ever had, but she hadn't realized how much of her mind it took up when she was thinking about it. She'd hardly thought about Val while she was there.
Maybe that's a good thing, at least for a while... I mean, there's nothing we can do at the moment; the cops're doing their thing, and we're not supposed to be doing anything else... But why aren't the cheerleaders being punished?
"Well, your friend Ashlee is telling us that YOU hit him, so-"
"Oh my GOD!" Shannon screamed. "NO! NO NO NO! SHE hit him, not ME!"
"Well, that's not what she said..."
How could Ashlee LIE like that? Shannon gasped.
"Why do you keep smiling?"
Detective O'Connor shrugged. "Just a good day, I guess. Besides, we haven't been shot at or spit on yet."
"Aw, man," Officer Sanchez complained, "I just got this uniform dry-cleaned."
"You should see my bills... Keep your fingers crossed," she ordered, and the two of them split to either side of the front door, against the walls. O'Connor knocked. "Open up, this is the police!" she barked.
"Stop smiling, man, it's bad luck," Sanchez pleaded quietly.
"And you need to check your data collection," Mr. Tucker said.
"I wh- Oh, damnit," Mike cursed.
"It's overflowing," Mr. Tucker confirmed, "and I don't want it on my disks in case someone asks what it is. You have some work to do tonight."
"Ohhhhhh," he sighed as he ran his hands through his hair. "Yeah."
"I cleared it with your folks," he continued. "Stay as long as you need to." Implicit was the order that Mike WOULD stay until he was finished.
"So, I mean, have you heard anything?" Debbie asked Kim.
"I..." Kim thought about it. "One of the band kids, uh, plays trumpet, he got dumped in a trash can today, so-"
"Do you know his name?" Names were important.
Mike was trying to take notes on who said what to whom and when on what line, but it was more than he could manage to keep enough of it in his head to write good notes. He shook it, which probably dislodged several more of the connections, and wondered what to DO with the wealth of data.
"Hello?"
"Gina?! Oh my God, you wouldn't believe what I just heard-"
"What? Calm down-"
"ALL the cheerleaders just got BUSTED," Melody crowed gleefully, "for beating up that kid in the locker room. I HEARD it was for attempted fucking MURDER!"
"Holy SHIT!" Gina yelped.
Melody continued confidently, "I am NOT kidding, either, I just talked to..."
Call Waiting beeped into Debbie's ear. "Hold on a sec, 'nother call. Hello?"
"Debbie, it's Mike. I have a big favor to ask, and I can't do it over the phone." Then why the hell did you call? she wondered, a bit irritated. He continued, "Can I talk to you tomorrow sometime?"
"Sure, yeah... What's it about?"
"I... need... No, not over the phone," he said more decisively. "After school?"
"What is it?"
"After school?" he repeated.
"Okay, okay!" She thought of Tuck's mother. "Is, uh, anyone else gonna be there?" she asked nervously.
"No?" Now he sounded puzzled. "Just me."
"Okay... After school, um, by your locker?"
"Yeah, that's good," he agreed. "See ya then." He hung up, the quick noise that said he was probably using Tuck's phone equipment instead of a regular phone.
"What the hell was that about?" Debbie complained to herself. Things were already complex enough that she was having to make notes to keep track of everything she was doing; she didn't need another complication. She switched back to Pam. "I'm back. Anyway, you were saying Bridgette heard something?"
Dan looked at the posters he'd come up with since talking to Tuck's mom, and wondered if he HAD to show them what he was doing, or if he could just stick them in school without talking to them. Tuck's mom scared him, a little; he'd seen her enraged a few times, though never at him, and he was never quite sure that he WOULDN'T be the target.
But these were pretty good, he thought.
Without quite deciding yet, he pulled on a pair of latex gloves and started printing copies, grabbing each one as it finished and placing it in a manila envelope. He'd print out a 'scuff' copy at the end of the print run that he could show around, to whoever it was gonna be. He was pretty sure they'd like it, though; this was the best of the bunch he'd been working on.
"Shit, I gotta get some sleep tomorrow... Can you take the after- school shift?" Mike asked Brian.
"Maybe... What's keeping you up so late?"
"Stuff... If it isn't school, it's this, and if it's not this, it's... other stuff."
"Like those posters?"
"What posters?"
"I've got ears, fuckwad," Brian complained. "What're you doing, putting 'em up at school?"
"You never heard anyth-"
"And I never saw anything and I really don't have any memory of the last week either," Brian rushed. "So? Putting 'em up at school?"
Since he already knew, and he was admitting the concept of 'See/Hear/Speak No Evil', Mike admitted, "Yeah. Trying to get the students to realize what a problem it is, the violence and stuff. Debbie's idea."
Brian whistled through his teeth. "Devil Debbie?"
"Where'd you hear that?"
"Made it up. She tied Mom up in knots a couple weeks ago, when that shit about Tuck- Hey, did YOU know about all that, what Tuck's been doing at like babysitting and everywhere else?"
Mike sighed, and tried to remember what Tuck had told him had been released, and whether Brian was included. "I don't really know anyth-"
Brian protested, "Fuck, man, I KNOW I'm cleared for this; I was in the room the second time they pulled Tuck in to interrogate him about it."
"Well, I don't remember if you were or not," Mike said. "Shit... Ask me later or something, okay? I'm fucking tired." Which reminded him, "So, uh-"
"Yeah, I can take the shift tomorrow," Brian said. "But what about tonight? You can't be putting those posters up during school..." Mike sighed again, tired and frustrated.
"When can I get OUT OF HERE?!" Jody screamed.
The only answer she got was, "Shut UP you little CUNT!" from someone in another cell.
"What?!"
"He offered," Mike groaned, "and I am so fucking tired I'm not safe to do it. I almost tripped and went down the stairs here 'cause I forgot which house I was in."
"Is he trustworthy?"
"For this, he is," Mike assured George. "Meet over here about oh six hundred." Zulu time, which might confuse anyone listening.
"What do you mean? The little shit- He'd STOLEN my UNIFORM, and he was sitting there WEARING it and peeping through the door at us!"
"How did you know-"
"That's where I found the little shit, hi-"
"Ashlee!" her mother complained.
"Well he is, Mom!" she turned and yelled. "He was in there WHACKING OFF or something, and in MY uniform! I mean, I mean, what- WHY?! God it's DISGUSTING!" she said to the cop in the suit. "I mean, think about some little geek pervert stealing YOUR clothes an' jerking off in 'em!"
"So how do you know he was jerking off into-"
"I don't think that's appropriate!" Mom bitched at the cop.
"Mom that's what-"
"QUIET!" Mom ordered.
"Ma'am, that's the word your daughter us-"
"And she'd better not use it again if she knows what's good for her!"
"Mom!"
They were all looking at him, and Brian sighed. "Look, assholes, you trust TUCK to do this with you. You can trust me like you do him."
"You and him blackmail each other constantly," Dan mentioned.
"That's just WITHIN the family, and about local stuff like chores and things," Brian reminded them. "When's the last time you heard me talk about something outside that?"
"You don't know anything."
Brian laughed. "Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho, wanna bet on that?" They all looked at each other, and he realized he might have made a mistake. "Look, this is for TUCKER, right? Hell, MIKE said to take me tonight instead of him. You trust Mike's judgement?" Tucker did, over his own most of the time. Brian had to admit, he was probably right; Mike almost never went wrong, if he acted. Sometimes he didn't seem like he would act at all... but it almost never went badly, and they never got caught, either.
Pause, as they all kept looking at each other.
"Get in the van," George sighed finally.
Sarah had awakened because her son's breathing had gotten rough, and then she had to spend twenty minutes cajoling him into coughing it all up. He'd finally finished, and while Sarah couldn't bear to look at the things he'd coughed up, he WAS breathing easier when he'd finished.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to him, as she stroked his hair. "I know it hurts..." His eyes opened halfway, and he gave her a look of almost unbearable exhaustion. "Want me to warm you up?" she asked, and he nodded weakly. She carefully put a sheet and a blanket atop him, then slid into the bed and arranged herself so she was pressed against him. He was warm to the touch, but still acting like he was cold. Fevered, she recognized, and sighed as she gently hugged him to her.
Jody half-woke at the noise at the door, and when she looked up, the woman guard said, "Come on, they're letting you go." With relief, she bounded up, and followed the woman guard down the hall.
Until she found herself in a big room, and the door shut behind her, and she realized suddenly that the woman guard was the same woman that had been in the hospital's elevator, and she was smiling that tight little smile as she pulled out a nightstick...
"Shut UP you stupid CUNT!" someone yelled at her as she tried to catch her breath and make sense out of what had just happened.
They had Brian on lookout, which suited him fine. Despite what he'd said, he wasn't as good at this sort of thing as his brother was, and he did NOT want to fuck up and get caught somehow. These guys had it all planned, from latex gloves so they wouldn't leave fingerprints, to black baggies over their feet while outside so they wouldn't leave wet footprints when they got inside, to faked plates on the van, to where to park so the occasional cop passing by wouldn't see the vehicle, to the alarm system codes...
Brian wished he could use some of this himself, for his own purposes, but he knew that he'd have to get Mike's agreement, and Mike wasn't that lenient. More so than Dad... or at least more willing to talk about it; but not that much.
He carefully bent down and angled his watch until he could read the face in the dim light coming from the parking lot. Ninety minutes down, another ninety to one-twenty to go... Shit, no wonder Mike was so tired. They'd said they would put them all OVER the school, and that would take time... Which they'd known and planned for.
Kim had gotten dressed and ready for school and was halfway out the door before she remembered what Tuck's father had said the day before. "Oh shit," she whispered as she stopped, and stared around at her front yard. "What do I do?"
After a few minutes, the pressure of time passing was too much for her, and she hadn't seen anything out of place anyway, so she slowly walked over to her car, looked inside it - nothing - and opened it, her heart pounding.
Nothing happened, and no one was around.
"Yo!" Jill called to Kim over the ringing of the bell. "I don't think she's going to make it today." She pointed to Shannon's usual seat, still empty.
"Did you hear what happened?" Kim asked, in a very low and quiet voice. "Yesterday?"
"Am I going to like this?" Jill asked, already grinning, and Kim nodded back with a grin of her own.
Bill smiled at Sarah as he came into Eugene's hospital room. "How's he doing?"
"Same same," she sighed. "No real changes. He's still coughing up multicolored slime; he needs to do it again around breakfast."
"Did you get any sleep?"
"Some. What're you doing today?"
"Working out pairings for the kids at school," he said, waving his laptop carrier. "Ought to be interesting."
"Interesting software problem?" she confirmed, and he nodded. "Any actual work?"
"Nope!" Not yet, he amended.
"I hate you, dear," she said with a tired smile.
"I don't believe this," Paul moaned, unable to look away from the poster glued to the office door.
"What is..." Sabrina moved closer to whatever stupid poster or handout was attracting everyone's attention and blocking her way.
What confronted her was a picture of a honest-to-God Nazi soldier, arms-over-shoulders with a football player, both of them smiling, and the caption, "TOGETHER WE CAN ELIMINATE THE WEAK AND UNFIT."
"WHAT the FUCK?!" Sabrina raged.
"No," Debbie corrected, "they got arrested for assault, yesterday after school. I bet some of 'em won't be in school today at all."
"Arrested? For WHAT?!" Krystal gasped.
"Remember that kid that got helicoptered out Thursday? He's pressing charges, and I think his parents are talking lawsuit too. They, I mean the whole cheerleading squad, are in some MAJOR deep stuff right now." Krystal had a BIG mouth; telling her anything was almost as fast as putting it over the loudspeakers, but it SEEMED more authentic since it was 'unofficial'.
"You assaulted this boy Thursday, then you got drunk early Sunday morning and assaulted a police offic-"
"I didn't hit a cop!" Shannon protested.
"One more outburst out of you and you can stay in jail until your trial is finished," the judge snapped as her father told her in a hissed whisper to shut up.
The lawyer her parents had gotten said, "Your Honor, my client is distraught-"
"Your client is trying my patience," the judge said back. "YOU," she pointed at Shannon, "be quiet unless I ask you a question."
"Good thing I still got that map," Bill said to himself as he plotted the most likely routing for Subject #4. He'd had to have a reasonably accurate floorplan for the network installation, and he'd kept a data copy, of course, for when he had to go back.
"Man, I just don't know," Anne Marie said to her friend Janice, "I thought I was gonna try out for something like Spirit Squad or like that, but..."
"I don't think I'd want anything to do with any of that now. Did you hear they got arrested for what they did to some kid?" Janice told her.
Debbie, Jill's friend, had told her to listen for anything like this, and pay careful attention, and tell her or her answering machine later. "Uh, no? What did you hear?"
The ride back home was silent, but no less horrible than if they'd both been screaming at her at the top of their lungs. Jody just stared out the window from the back seat, unable to even cry any more.
"So, like, did you hear what happened to the, I mean, some girls in band yesterday?" Laisha asked Debbie.
"No? What?" Debbie urged the other girl; she didn't have a lot of time to walk to her next class, but this sounded useful.
"And you hit her?" Paul confirmed.
"She called me a fuckhead!" Jason Remmele yelped.
"That's no reason to escalate to violence," Paul said mildly. Inwardly, he was seething. Kelly Bergquist, Eugene Tucker's 'Little Sister', looked like she was at least as angry and perturbed as he was. Paul just had more experience keeping it in, and a bigger reason; Arlene Raleigh, standing next to him and watching everything he did for an excuse to fire him.
The yelling had started, and it WAS worse than the silence.
"Why didn't you go get your coach?!" her mom asked Jody for the fourth time. "She was RIGHT THERE!"
"I don't know!" Jody shrieked, exhausted and terrified and feeling completely abandoned. "He was just there and then Ashlee hit him and then he hit Ashlee and... And... I don't KNOW!"
"This is important!" Coach Grigbsy bellowed. "LISTEN UP!"
They all looked like they were paying attention now.
"Administration is getting TIRED of kids getting bullied and put into the hospital, so- HEY! I MEAN IT! KNOCK IT OFF!" he bellowed, enraged at their laughter. "If any of you get caught bullying or picking on another student, you are CANNED! Got that?!"
They got it, finally; the worried looks and whining complaints told him that. "And that's not from the principal's office; that's from ME. I don't like bullies, and I don't want my team to get a rep like that. Do it and you WILL be gone. I am NOT gonna put up with this. Did you see this poster?" He held up the offending item, which he'd managed to get off a wall. "Don't you see?" he said in a quiet voice, "This is how some of the other students think of us. Do you want them to think of you as a bunch of damned Nazis?"
All he got in response was mumbles.
"WELL, DAMNIT! DO you?!"
"No!" came from several of them.
"Then you'd DAMN well better clean up your act! Dobson's already talking about dropping football ENTIRELY if this keeps up."
"He can't do that!" Barry argued as he shot to his feet.
"He can; he has the power to do it, just like he suspended the cheerleaders during Homecoming. He can do it to YOU just the same way. And... Damnit, if this is what you're going to turn into, I don't want to be a part of it either."
That stunned them. He glared at them, all of them, while the room remained deathly silent.
"You guys better keep your noses COMPLETELY clean, or that's IT. For ALL of you," he finished.
Looking at them, he thought that he had finally gotten through.
"Mike?" He looked up, and Debbie was homing on him, with Kim tagging along.
"Hey. No sweat," he told Kim. "You'd better get going, too; you don't need this on your conscience. And-"
"FUCK you!" Kim snarled.
"Heyheyhey," Debbie insisted. "Kim, chill. You know, the less you hear, the less you can tell, ri-"
"Why don't you TRUST me?" Kim complained, apparently to both of them.
"We trust as few people as possible, including each other, Kim; you should know that by now," Mike said. "Loose lips sink ships."
"Mike?" Debbie asked. "You look like shit..."
"I feel like shit," he admitted. "Dealing with Tuck in the hospital like this is like a full-time job, then school, then everything else..."
"I'm sorry," Kim said, and it took a few moments for Mike to connect what she was saying with what she'd said just moments ago. She continued, "Maybe this whatever-it-is could wait until later?"
Mike knew that he'd just have to go through more of it if he let the disks fill up again. "No... But as soon as this is done, I'm gonna go home and get some sleep. Can I see you tomorrow, Kim?" he asked, hoping she'd take the offering and hint and let him get this done so he COULD go home and sleep.
"I still have to babysit," she said with a sour face.
Debbie nodded and said, "And believe me, I appreciate it. I couldn't find anyone else I could trust on such short notice. Maybe you two could go out to dinner tomorrow night, my treat?"
Mike and Kim both stared at her. "You catch Tuck's pneumonia?" Mike asked first.
"What?" Debbie asked back, and Kim turned on him too, both of them with intense, questioning looks on their faces.
Oh shi- no, this is known, he remembered with relief. "Any time he gets a bad asthma attack, he gets pneumonia too. Then it gets really bad, after that."
"I WANT to apologize! I tried Sunday!" Jody tried to explain. "But, but..." The horror of realizing she was trapped in the elevator with that madwoman - she was sure she was going to be badly hurt, maybe even killed - and then trying to get out of the hospital and hearing her EVERYWHERE...
"Made a deal with Mike," Brian said to Mom as he got into her car. "I'm watching Tuck this evening. He needs some extra sleep."
"I think that's a good idea," Mom nodded.
"Not while you're driving!" he teased in a pleading tone. She DID look tired.
"I gotta take all you guys home and then get to work," Kathy complained. "Come on, move it."
"Look, you don't-"
"Yes I do," she snapped at Cory. "Debbie asked me to make sure you guys got away from school safely. So I'm gonna do that. You don't like it, take it up with her. You'll lose if you argue with me."
Kelly just kept her mouth shut and got into the cramped backseat of Kathy's car.
"Yo, dor- Hey, what's up with him?" Brian asked, his tone of voice changing from usual sibling-incitement to concerned.
"He's fevered," Bill explained. "Burning up, and still complaining he's cold. Plus he's not eating much."
"Pneumonia again?" Brian half-asked and half-stated. Bill nodded. "How come he gets this EVERY time?" Bill had to shrug. "So, uh, what do I do with him today? Anything?"
"We've got to keep his airways cleaned out, so around six or so, he's got to have a Big Cough, an-"
"Oh gross," Brian sighed. "Makes ME sick seeing it."
"Nobody likes it, but it's better out of 'im than in 'im," Bill reminded. "And see if you can get him to eat something," he pointed to the cooler. "Sarah put some Jello in the fridge-"
"Saw it. See if I can get him to eat it?"
Bill nodded. "And no pouring it in his ears."
"Aw man," Brian mock-complained. "If I pour it in his ears, he doesn't get the chance to say 'no'."
"Is Valerie still in the hospital?"
Kim sighed to herself; the baby was to the point in her life where she didn't want to stay still long enough to get diapered. So of course he has to ask me this RIGHT now instead of in a few minutes. She finally got Stella to stand still long enough to wipe her bottom clean. "Uh, what? Oh, yeah, she is."
"Can you give her something?" Ricky asked.
"Not now!" She picked Stella up and put her on her back, which delayed her long enough that Kim could stick the tabs in the right places. "Finally! Uh, what?" she asked Ricky, who was holding an envelope in his hands.
"Could you give her something?" he asked.
"Um... I guess I could get it to her," she said hesitantly. "She's pretty sick, and her family doesn't want visitors there, but... Yeah, I think I can," she agreed. "What is it?"
"It's private so don't open it," he asserted. Kim just shrugged to herself before she stuck the letter in her purse.
"Holy shit!" Debbie gasped as she realized just what they'd been doing, and how MUCH they'd been doing. "HOW many?"
"Four or five," Mike sighed as he rubbed his face, before handing her the large manila envelope that held the tapes. "They call each other a lot."
"Yeah..." As did her friends. Oh, shit... Before she could get very upset, though, she realized something else. "Mike? Since we know who did, uh, who hurt Tuck, and they've arrested them, then, do you need the taps on these people? Tuck kind of indicated that the taps were hard to put in, but they were reusable?" Mike nodded. "So, um, do you think you could move 'em someplace else?"
"Fuck n- Wait. You have an idea?" he asked.
"Well duh," she sighed at him. Like I do this for fun, like you guys? "Yes."
"What is it?"
Brian looked over at Tuck, who was currently buried under extra blankets, with something wrapped around his head Arab-style. He'd complained, somewhat coherently, of being cold, and family standing instructions for a fever were to keep the person as warm as they wanted to be.
"Man," he said quietly, half to himself and half to the absent-via- unconsciousness Eugene, "how the hell are we gonna move you out of here tomorrow?" He had a hunch that, if they had to move him in an ambulance because he couldn't sit up in a car, the hospital wouldn't actually let him go. "Maybe..." Both his parents had station wagons, so if they could fold the rear seats, Tuck could lie down in the back... But then, if the medicos caught them doing it, they'd pull him back into the hospital instantly. Wonder if he could sit up long enough to get out of sight, and then we could stick him in the back. Can he walk?
Something else occurred to him at that point. "If we have to bug out, you are in some kinda deep shit..." There was no way he could walk, much less walk with a pack, when he was like this. And there weren't enough of them to carry him, not for any real distance. "What the hell could we do with you?"
"Mom, I need to sleep," Mike whined, hating himself dully for doing so. "It's been hard the last week! I need a nap or something! Let me get leftovers later, okay?"
"Okay, Michael... I just worry about you," Mom said gently to him, and he hated her a little for being so nice at him. "Go take a nap, and we'll try to be quiet."
"Thanks Mom," he said, mostly sincerely, and gave her a long hug.
"Do you know what Eugene's mother is doing? I thought, maybe-"
"Aw, Mom!" he complained. "Come on!"
"She needs it, and she appreciates it too," she said firmly.
Mike shut up and rubbed his neck, thinking. "She might be sleeping, is the problem. Uh... Call Tuck's dad; he'll know. Do you have his cell number?" She nodded. Stupid question. "He'll know what's going on."
Dana looked at Eugene, who was trying to keep himself fevered, and shook her head. "Look, I know he feels cold; his thermostat is overset to try and burn out the infection. But he's around one-oh- three and it's not good for it to be that high. He needs to cool off at least a degree, and I'd prefer two. And soon."
"He's not gonna like it," Brian predicted in a tired voice, as he moved to unwrap the towel covering Eugene's head.
"I don't think he likes any of this; this'll just be one more thing," Dana predicted.
Oh hell. Kim thought frantically for a moment, and then said, "Uh, Miz Parker, you really DON'T want to do that right now. They're having to stay with her, in the hospital, all the time, and they are like really stressed out with this. I'm staying away from them as much as possible. And they don't want any visitors either; she's already caught something infectious from being in the hospital, and they're afraid she'd get something else."
"But I'm not sick; I haven't been for months!"
"You can pick stuff up and not get the disease, just carry it. Look, it's not MY deal," she told Miz Parker, "it's her family. If you want, you can call them or something and talk to them about it. They won't let me go visit," she shrugged. Kim hadn't actually asked; she'd just assumed, from the way they'd been acting paranoid, that they wouldn't like it if she tried.
Brian watched with interest as Doc Treble prepared to loosen the clamp on the tube that went into Tucker's chest. Man, I wonder how much that thing hurts, he thought idly. It was hard to tell with his brother; he could be weird about pain, sometimes crying over the littlest thing and sometimes not even noticing the glaringly obvious. Plus, he was on a serious amount of heavy drugs, and Dana said they wouldn't wear off completely in between chest-clearing sessions either.
She opened it, and nothing bubbled in the water trap, as they all stared intently. "Looks good, then," Doc Treble said, sounding satisfied.
"Means nothing's leaking, right?" Brian confirmed. "Air or blood?"
"Right," Doc Treble agreed with a smile. Even Tucker managed to smile a bit, Brian guessed; it was hard to tell through the oxygen mask over his face.
Oh no... Bill answered the phone, holding it a half-inch away from his ear, since it was his sister-in-law. "Hello?"
The voice he heard - barely - was not that of his sister-in-law. "What?" he said as he brought the speaker closer.
"It's Amy?" the girl said petulantly. "And Mom won't tell me what's going on over there with Tuck! She's having one of her snits about some stupid thing. What's going on?"
"Hey, I just remembered something," Lisa said when Debbie ran out of things to say momentarily and decided to eat some of her supper. "Uh, you know Travis was, uh..."
When Debbie could swallow, she supplied, "Dating Valerie?" keeping her face calm. "Yes, I knew that."
"He's been asking about her. I don't know what to tell him."
"Awwwwww, shit," Debbie cursed. "I don't know what to tell him either. Tuck's family has REALLY clamped down on everyone; they don't want any information getting out to anyone. And I don't think the little shit has TOLD them yet. About Travis."
"From a little questioning," Lisa said as she forked her salad around, "I don't think the little shit has mentioned to Travis that he's, uh, not quite one thing or the other."
Debbie knew that she wasn't talking about Valerie's sexual preferences. "Oh no."
"Oh yeah. I think. I'm trying not to give it away if he doesn't know..." Lisa gave her a look, which Debbie ignored; she didn't want Valerie getting pissed off at her and/or Lisa for fucking up the relationship she had with Travis. Whatever it was. "But," Lisa sighed, "he asked me if Valerie had been having any problems at school lately, and he asked because of the news thing about 'some kid' being Starflighted out."
"That sounds like he DOESN'T know..."
"But the story didn't give names, and I didn't give names either. What do I do?" she implored Debbie.
"Has he been calling Valerie?"
"Yeah; no answer, and he's been paging her too."
"Shit... I hadn't heard anything about the pager," she explained. "And I'm still paying for it, and I don't know WHERE it is, or if they- if Mike got it, with his pack. Mike got his backpack, without the laptop, out of the garbage, where they dumped it along with his clothes," she explained.
"They should've left the laptop in the garbage," Lisa mentioned, and Debbie nodded. "That's traceable."
"So's the pager, but not as easy... And I don't need the DEA or Vice nosing around because some pusher's been using it." She sighed.
"Eat," Lisa pointed.
"You should talk!"
"Because I know better!" she shot back, and the two of them grinned at each other before Debbie deliberately turned her attention to her food for a few bites.
"Oh, man, I only slept for three hours!" Mike complained, staring at his answering machine. It still claimed that he'd had SIX calls.
"He's got the scheduling worked out, he said-"
"What scheduling?" Sabrina asked, interrupting Mike.
"Remember we were gonna fix it so that we all had some kind of partner or something to go between classes? He's been futzing with it all day, somehow-"
"You're kidding."
"Swear ta Buddha, that's what he said he did today," Mike claimed. "Can you get everyone over there, he asks, after your tutoring session, about nine? The girls, anyway."
"Even the Little Sisters?" she asked, wondering if she could possibly get all of them.
"Either that, or we talk to them in the morning. I think it's a good idea. James got smacked a couple of times already this week, and Kelly almost got into a fight today. Stuff is starting to happen, man..."
"I know," Sabrina agreed. She'd noticed that almost everyone was more tense and irritable than normal this week, and more touchy.
"It may be overkill, but, you know, it really couldn't hurt, not just making sure that there's someone around, someone friendly around I mean, in between classes or whatever."
"Yeah... Okay, I'll see who I can call, okay? Tuck's place at nine?" she confirmed. "What do we tell everyone, though?" she realized. "Some of the Littles' parents aren't gonna want their kids out that late."
"Uhhhh." Sabrina waited. "I have no clue."
"That's not helpf-"
"Neither is telling me that," Mike snapped. "Do you have any ideas?"
"Ummmm..." She thought hard. "Maybe different ones for our Littles and yours. We could say ours... for Halloween, coordinating the costumes," she guessed.
"That'd work," Mike said, sounding surprised.
"Maybe we should do this earlier, like eight thirty? That'd be easier to get past the parents; it doesn't SOUND as late."
"You'd be willing to give up half a tutoring session?"
"Hell yeah!" Sabrina bitched. "I mean, I don't want to see anyone else hurt, you know!"
"Okay," he tried to be soothing. "I know. I just, I didn't want to assume."
Dork, she thought but didn't say.
"Aw man! This is COOL!" George complained. "And it's WORKING."
"We can't do anything tonight, even if he has something," Mike asserted. "I'm still fucked up, everyone else is bone tired, it's Tuesday night and we STILL have school and shit tomorrow morning... So we stand down until tomorrow night at least."
"All..." He couldn't stop the immense yawn that took over his entire body.
"See?" Mike said smugly.
"Shut UP," George suggested.
"Can I speak to Paul Dobson please?"
"Um, who may I say is calling?"
"This is Miz Carstairs," Debbie said. "It's about the... incident yesterday at McAllen."
Pause.
"Alright," the woman said, sounding a bit doubtful, "I'll see if he's home."
Debbie waited, sure that he was home tonight; where else would he be on a weekday night, with his wife home and answering the phone?
"So it's okay?"
"That's what she said, Dad," Brian sighed. "She said, if there wasn't any stuff in the drain after twenty-four hours, that they could probably slide it out tomorrow, stitch it up, and send him home. She wants to get him out of here before he picks up one of those superbug infections."
"Right," Dad agreed. "I'll start setting up the house."
"When do I get to come home?" Brian pressed.
"Ahhhh..." Brian did NOT like the sound of that. "I think we can switch everyone sometime after nine."
Nine o'clock... shit!
"It's not going to stop otherwise, and there's nothing you CAN do to stop it. I heard that what they did to Tuck, they did it with their hands. Unless you can manage to cut their hands off or someth-"
"You don't have to be sarcastic, Deborah."
Her lip curled at the name he used, but she got control of it and continued. "The point is, unless you get the students involved in policing the school, there's nothing you can do," she said as sharply as she could.
"And you think this-"
"I know it'll work," Debbie asserted, feeling at least half as confident as she sounded. "And if you help, you'll get most of the credit for it."
Pause. Come on, grab it... Debbie urged silently.
He finally said, sounding very tired, "What do you want me to do?" and she had to clamp down on a squeal of excited joy.
"Hello?"
"Mister Tucker? This is Sheila, Eugene's therapist."
What? Why- Oh damnit, I forgot...
A knock at the door alerted Brian, but when he looked up, it wasn't a nurse coming in. He almost went for the crisis bag before he realized that she looked vaguely familiar-
"Excuse me," the woman said, and Brian remembered she was Tuck's therapist.
"Yeah?" he said as he stood up. "What?"
"I just talked to Eugene's father," she explained, "and he said that I could spend some time with Eugene?"
"Do what?"
Before she answered, the computer started beeping urgently.
"I-"
"Go outside and wait," he ordered as he went back to see what Dad wanted. "Please," he added belatedly.
"Um, I'll be outside the door," she said as she hesitantly left.
The computer had popped up a window and was showing one of Dad's telegraph-style messages, this one saying that Tuck's therapist Sheila had limited visitation clearance, subject to Tuck's wishes. "Yeah, right," Brian commented as he acknowledged the message and killed the window. "He likes going to her about as much as he likes being in here... Hey, Tuck? Wake up a minute." He had to shake his brother's shoulder a few times before the eyes opened. "Tuck, your therapist is here, says she wants to see you?"
Tuck made some sign language with his hands, which Brian didn't get. "Dad said," Brian continued, ignoring the incomprehensible fingerings, "that you could see her or not. She's outside, but I can tell her to go away."
Tuck breathed for a while, then screwed up for some effort and croaked, "What... she want?"
"I dunno," Brian shrugged. "Talk, I guess."
"Can't."
"Yeah, I can tell that. Should I tell her that?" Tuck nodded. "Don't go away," Brian smirked as he walked to the door.
She was standing outside, looking at a small Daytimer, and she glanced up as he came out. "He can't talk; it hurts him too much."
"How badly is he hurt?" she asked, sounding surprised.
"I dunno," Brian lied; Dad hadn't said anything about giving her any information.
"Well, um..." She looked away for a moment. "It's really not necessary for him to talk. Is, is he conscious?"
"I'm not sure. Wait here please," Brian said, and went back in without waiting for an answer. "Tuck? She said she doesn't need you to talk?"
Tuck looked back at him with the same kind of 'whattafuck?' face he knew he had.
"I dunno. Maybe she's gonna give you healing positive energy waves or something," he said dismissively. "I'll tell her to take off," he said as he turned back towards the door.
Tuck rapped on the bedframe, which made him stop and turn around. "Let pass," he rasped.
"What? Are you SURE?" Brian asked, incredulous. "'Cause I, she doesn't have to be here, an' Dad said it was your call..."
Tuck's glare finally made him stop talking. "In," Tuck repeated.
"Oh... alright. You want me in here?" Tuck shook his head. "Right outside okay?" He nodded. "Alright..." Brian grabbed a chair with one hand and opened the door with the other. "He said you can come in and do whatever. If he wants you to leave, though, you leave."
"Of course," she nodded, and Brian went past her and put the chair down outside, letting her go in past him.
"Man... these people are strange," Brian decided. "Been lickin' too many crystals or something."
Bill had just placed the two filled oxygen cylinders in Eugene's room when his watch alarm went off. 1955, he read. What the hell am I doing at 1955? He stared at his watch until he remembered, Sabrina. Right. And then the pairings... which Mike was supposed to call around about. Right. He unslung the bag containing the rest of the oxygen equipment, placed it on the lower bunk, and went downstairs. Did I eat something today? he wondered.
"So your throat hurts too much to talk?" Sheila confirmed. Eugene nodded. "That's all right. I just wanted to come visit for a while. Sometimes, people... people who have survived a crime like this, need special support afterwards. It's very hard to deal with..." Eugene closed his eyes, giving the impression that he was totally weary.
"You don't have to say anything, or do anything," she continued softly. "I'm just here, to be here with you, and give you... whatever help I can. Alright?"
She wondered if he had truly gone to sleep, but several seconds later he faintly nodded at her.
"Is he gonna be okay?" Sabrina asked.
"We think so," Mr. Tucker said, but he didn't add anything else. "You ready? And would you mind if I ate while we did this? I didn't eat today."
"Oh, uh, sure-"
"I could get you some if-"
"No, no, I ate at home before I came over here," Sabrina said. "We eat early at my house."
"Remember that deal, about us having partners or something in between classes?" Amanda asked, and Jill nodded. "Sabrina said Mister Tucker said, or, uh, he called Mike who called Sabrina, who said, um," Jill fought to keep from smacking her. "Anyway, he's having a deal at his house, I mean Tuck's house, an' we can see who has classes close to who, or something like that."
Jill sighed. "Alright... I'll be off in about twenty minutes. No, wait OUTSIDE," she insisted as Amanda wandered back into the store.
"I wanna look at something!" she protested.
Sarah pulled onto their street, and the larger than usual number of cars parked in the street immediately caught her attention. What the hell?
As she got closer, she thought she recognized one or two of them. What is- Oh, that buddies thing Bill was working on, she remembered. I hope he isn't waiting for me to get there before he starts, 'cause I don't want to deal with them right now. All I want's a shower and to go get Brian... and stay with Eugene...
Kelly looked at the printout Mr. Tucker had handed her, and looked around. This is so weird, she thought. I dunno... Is this really- The asshole who had almost started a fight with her today came to mind. She argued, Yeah, but he wouldn't have-
They did it to Tuck.
Damnit. She looked at the printout again. "James?" she asked out loud.
"Are you Kelly?" asked the dork in the Star Trek T shirt.
Oh no, not him... She finally admitted, "Uh... yeah." They had five classes either together (she'd known about two) or near each other.
"I can't tell if this is going overboard or not," Amanda admitted.
"At least we know who's where," Jill pointed out. "I mean, it's not like we HAVE to base our lives on this or anything, but it's nice to know, I guess. Besides, now we know who we've been missing between classes," she smirked.
Debbie put her earphones on, and pressed play, wondering... but there it was, a dial tone, some phone dialing noises, and ringing, before someone picked up. "Hello?" "Ashlee, this is Jordan..."
Damn... They really did it. She hadn't quite believed Mike, or maybe she just didn't want to believe Mike, but there they were, chatting away like they were on a private line...
Debbie paused the tape, opened a word processor on her computer, and started to take notes.
"Travis," Lisa sighed, "she'll call when she's ready to talk."
"Well, damnit!" he snapped, sounding frustrated, "it's been almost two weeks!"
"I know... but I think she lost her pager, and things over at her school have been really, really complex and confusing," she said, trying to avoid mentioning that she was in the hospital. She knew he'd demand to go if that were true, and at this point Valerie's family might just kill him, from what Debbie had mentioned.
"How do you know all-"
"I still talk to Debbie, remember? And-"
"Debbie?" he asked, sounding very suspicious.
I DON'T need this. "They do have a lot of friends in common, and Debbie goes to school there too, remember? I asked her to talk to one of Valerie's friends, and have Valerie call you; it just might be a while before she feels comfortable-"
"What does she have to..." He slowed to a stop.
"I don't know," Lisa finally said into the slightly static-ridden silence. "From what I heard, it's really kind of a scary time over there, like the freaks and the jocks-"
"She's NOT a freak, Lisa!"
Why am I doing this? she asked herself, but it was a rhetorical question. "I didn't say she was, Travis," she said patiently. "But that's the sort of social group she's in, with her computers and role playing games and everything else. Point is," she emphasized, "that things there are really upset and confused, and she's probably been too busy or worried about her friends to call. You should keep calling her, or leave a message on her machine or something."
"All I have is her pager number," he whined.
You pathetic asshole, she thought. "I'm sure she'll call you when she has some time, Travis. Right now..." Oh, hey... she thought as an idea struck her. "Right now, she probably doesn't have a lot of spare time, and if you two had a fight the last time you were together, she probably needs to find a few hours to deal with you, all at once without interruptions. Wasn't that part of what made her upset last week?" she reminded him. It was what he'd said, anyway; which might or might not be true, of course.
He finally admitted, "Yeah..."
"25 States allow anyone to buy a gun, strap it on, and walk down the street with no permit of any kind: some say it's crazy. However, 4 out of 5 US murders are committed in the other half of the country: so who is crazy?"
-- Andrew Ford, forda at agcs dot com
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- @>--,--'----- Ellen Hayes o===[-------- __ vicki .sig +
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